A Cool Ride Followed a Cold Game

Cal State Northridge basketball players had the day off Wednesday after a 93-66 loss at St. Mary’s, and they needed it.

The Matadors left their hotel in Emeryville, Calif., at 2 a.m. to begin their bus ride home. The team was supposed to stay the entire night, then depart around 8 in the morning.

But after being told that they would not be required to practice, the players gathered to vote about leaving immediately after the game.

Given a day off, they decided they wanted the whole day.

However, because of regulations bus drivers are required to follow, the earliest Northridge could depart was about four hours after the game ended.

Coach Pete Cassidy allowed the change of plans, reasoning that he was in favor of “whatever was best for the players.”

It was a long, cold trip back.

“For the record, let me say that the air conditioning on the bus is in working condition,” said Debby De Angelis, the athletic program’s business manager. “It’s just that it’s not particularly efficient during extreme cold.”

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE

The Extra Yard

Other players grabbed important rebounds and scored important points, but Northridge would not have defeated UC Irvine last Saturday had Chris Yard been any less tough.

Yard, a 6-6 forward, injured his right knee when he landed awkwardly going for a rebound seven minutes into the game.

With the knee heavily taped and grimacing from the pain, Yard played a total of 26 minutes, finishing with 14 points and a game-high 11 rebounds as the Matadors snapped a 12-game road losing streak with a 68-66 victory.

Yard’s availability in the final minutes was particularly important because Northridge had no other player capable of matching up with Irvine’s Khalid Channell after Matador swingman Shawn Stone fouled out with 5:52 remaining.

Channell, a 6-7 forward, led Irvine with 16 points, but his only field goal in the last five minutes came after a rebound in the final seconds.

“With his knee being as it was, at that time (having Yard guard Channell) was a risky situation,” Cassidy said.

Several times during the game, Cassidy benched Yard only to have the player beg his way back onto the floor. “I wanted to be in there,” Yard said. “I wanted to win and I feel like we’re a better team with me in there.”

Northridge learned that the hard way in the loss to St. Mary’s.

*

Brooklyn McLinn led Northridge with 18 points against Irvine, but his biggest contribution to the Matadors’ upset came on defense.

Cassidy credited McLinn, a 6-1 senior, with putting the clamps on Chris Brown and Todd Whitehead, Irvine’s outside scoring threats.

Brown, the reigning Big West Conference Player of the Week, made two of 11 field-goal attempts and finished with six points. Whitehead had eight points.

“I put it on Brown. I ate him alive,” McLinn said afterward. “(Northridge coaches) told me he’s strictly a three-point shooter and just to jam him. Don’t help on nobody. That’s what I did. I just stayed on him. Basically, I was oblivious to the ball. I just stayed on him.”

*

In the Matadors’ past 11 games, McLinn has made 33 of 62 three-point attempts, a shooting streak he attributes to focusing on a target.

“When I go up my concentration is on the center of the basket, on a little dot right above,” McLinn said, “so whenever I’m going up for a shot, whether I’m falling down or what, I’m trying to find it.

“No matter what the situation is in the game or anything else, if I find it, it’s going down.”

*

Cassidy is extremely careful about making disparaging remarks about players--his own, or those from another team. But he caught himself after the Irvine game.

The Northridge coach was asked to comment about the mistake Irvine center Joe Hannon made by passing the ball out toward the perimeter instead of putting up a shot off a rebound as time ran out with the Anteaters trailing by two points.

Hannon, Cassidy was told, thought Irvine was down by three.

“Thank you, Joe,” Cassidy said. Then, quickly, he caught himself.

“I don’t mean to malign Joe,” Cassidy added. “Who the hell is going to malign Joe Hannon? Joe Hannon is a helluva kid. That guy . . . he could play for us any day. In fact, we recruited the hell out of him.”

Nice try on the recovery, coach.

*

The women’s basketball team has struggled to a 2-12 record, but a bright spot emerged over the last week.

Sophomore guard Michelle Esparza, academically ineligible in the fall semester, set career scoring highs in her last two games, getting 25 points Saturday in an 87-84 overtime win over Cal State San Bernardino. Esparza scored 28 Monday in a 73-53 loss to Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“She brings a different intensity when she’s in the lineup,” Matador Coach Kim Chandler said. “She’s more of a perimeter threat than anyone else we have.”

In seven games since becoming eligible, Esparza has averaged 19.1 points.

CAL LUTHERAN

Ridley’s Believe It or Not

Is this the same Damon Ridley?

The Cal Lutheran senior guard shot 48.3% from the field and 28.6% from three-point range last season. But entering Wednesday’s Southern California Collegiate Athletic Conference opener, Ridley was shooting 56% and 57.1%, respectively, this season.

The 6-foot-2 Cincinnati native had been on fire since a four-for-16 outing against Christian Heritage on Dec. 21, hitting 43 of 72 shots (59.8%) in the last five games and 30 of 44 (68.2%) in the previous three.

“He didn’t have a particularly good game from the field (against Christian Heritage), but that was just one of those games,” Coach Mike Dunlap said. “Damon does so many other things, that even if he has an off night from the field, he can still help you win.”

JUNIOR COLLEGES

Bad Day at the Office

It was a tough night Saturday for Glendale guard Maurice McIntosh.

In a physical Western State Conference interdivisional game against powerful Ventura, the 5-foot-11 freshman from Monroe High was hammered during a play and hit the hardwood, face first.

He lay motionless for a few seconds, bleeding from the nose.

He returned to action a few minutes later, but the punishment wasn’t over.

“A guy from the other team bit me, right on the face,” McIntosh said. The incident apparently occurred when McIntosh and the opposing player collided.

Then came the clincher for McIntosh, who scored four points in a 74-60 loss to the Pirates: The person supposed to drive him home after the game forgot to pick him up.

Around the Campuses . . .

* Ventura’s Julie Hardy, a 5-foot-10 freshman forward from Buena High, was named the Western State Conference North Division women’s player of the week after scoring 67 points and grabbing 34 rebounds in three games, all won by the Pirates.

* Rebekah Cunnan, a 5-9 freshman forward at Canyons, was named the WSC South Division women’s player of the week. Cunnan, from Vivian Webb Academy, scored 60 points and had 38 rebounds as the Cougars won two of three games.

* Cal Lutheran’s Paul LaMott, Jason Smith and Damon Ridley were ranked first, third and fourth in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for field-goal percentage heading into Wednesday’s conference-opening games. LaMott was shooting 69.4% (25 of 36) from the field with Smith at 59.5% (50 of 84) and Ridley at 56% (84 of 150). Teammates Rupert Sapwell (54.8%) and Derrick Clark (53.8%) were ranked seventh and ninth.

* Cal Lutheran and Claremont-Mudd were tied for the SCIAC lead in steals per game with a 12.5 average.

* The Master’s men’s basketball team (15-3) is leading the NAIA Far West Region independents in three-point accuracy (41.9%), free-throw accuracy (75.5%) and victory margin (15.6 points per game).

* Nicole Albert (18.9 points per game) and Kelli McCaskill (18.7) of Cal Lutheran were ranked first and second in scoring average among SCIAC women at the start of the week. Teammate Diana Cortez was leading the conference in assists (8.6) and was second in steals (4.3).

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Mike Hiserman, Michael Lazarus and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.